Featured Domains

Company that fights domain registrars over access to Whois data pockets $10 million.

Brand protection company AppDetex has raised $10 million in a round led by First Analysis. It has raised $17.5 million to date; a prior round was led by EPIC Ventures and Origin Ventures, which also participated this time.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has issued its annual release about how many cybersquatting cases it heard under UDRP and similar policies.

WIPO’s headline says it’s a record, and that’s true when considering the number of cases (3,447). But the number of domains involved (5,665) was only the third highest (see chart).

Another thing to point out is that there will be a lot of false headlines saying that cybersquatting has hit a new high. Remember that WIPO is just one of the providers for UDRP. It has tended to win more market share over time.

Also, case filings do not necessarily correlate to the amount of cybersquatting.

I expect UDRP filings to increase in 2019 because of GDPR. Companies that question whether a domain constitutes cybersquatting have difficulty figuring out if the registrant has rights or legitimate interests in the domain because they can’t research the registrant. They might be dissuaded from filing a complaint depending on who the owner is.

Of the 5,665 domains, 5022 were gTLDs and 633 were ccTLDs.

.Com, .Net and .Org were unsurprisingly the top gTLDs. .Nl, .Co and .Se led the way for ccTLDs.

According to RDNH.com, there were 28 reverse domain name hijacking findings at WIPO last year.

This change will not only allow the [.org/info] renewal agreement to better conform with the base registry agreement, but also takes into consideration the maturation of the domain name market and the goal of treating the Registry Operator equitably with registry operators of new gTLDs and other legacy gTLDs utilizing the base registry agreement.

The proposed agreement also adds Uniform Rapid Suspension, a trademark rights protection mechanism that was created as part of the new top level domain program. It allows trademark holders to quickly take down domains that are alleged to be cybersquatting. ICANN has previously added URS to several other top level domain contracts as they have renewed.

ICANN’s justification seems to be that all registries should play by the same rules. But this ignores the environment in which these domain names were launched and registered by customers. It is, in effect, a retroactive change to policy.

It’s true that new top level domain registries can jack up their prices as much as they want. However, compared to legacy TLDs, these price increases were allowed from the start. The most recent .org and .info registry agreements had price controls baked in that only allowed prices to increase 10% per year. That’s a lot, but it’s not unlimited.

So people who have registered .org and .info domains with the understanding that price increases would be capped are suddenly using domains that could theoretically cost thousands of dollars to renew.

While I doubt that Public Interest Registry (.org) and Afilias (.info) will increase prices that much, history tells us that the existing customers are the ones that will end up paying the higher prices. Registries generally discount first-year registrations, not renewals. So it’s reasonable to expect that these registries will increase the base cost going forward but then offer specials on new registrations.

ICANN notes that “Protections for existing registrants will remain in place, in line with the base registry agreement.” These protections are just allowing existing registrants to renew their domains for up to 10 years at current prices before price hikes take effect. That just kicks the can down the road.

One of ICANN’s missions is the stability of the DNS. Allowing uncapped price changes adds instability to the market behind it.

Ascio has 1.8 million domains under management and 500 active resellers. Compared to Enom, which Tucows acquired two years ago, Ascio has fewer but bigger resellers.

By selling Ascio, CSC it focusing on its brand management registrar.

Ascio has a strong presence in Europe with a headquarters in Denmark and office in Germany. It’s also known for carrying lots of country code top level domains, which will help Tucows expand the number of TLDs available.

According to the release, Ascio had approximately $4 million in annual EBITDA. Tucows had already included the Ascio contribution in the latest financial guidance it provided last month.

Tucows says it expects cost synergies in the deal and this makes sense. The company is already rebuilding its platform to run both Enom and OpenSRS, Tucows’ other reseller registrar.

You might have to pay a lot more for your .org and .info domains in the future.

Domain name overseer ICANN has proposed new contracts for the .Org and .Info registries that would eliminate price caps on the domain names. Under the terms of the new agreements, .Org operator Public Interest Registry and .Info operator Afilias could increase prices on registrations to an unlimited amount, provided that they give advance notice.

The terms are similar to those found in new top level domain name agreements that have resulted in some registry operators jacking up prices as much as 30x. While those cases were for little-used domains, .Org currently has 10 million domains under management.

In announcing the proposed contract, ICANN stated:

In alignment with the base registry agreement, the price cap provisions in the current .org agreement, which limited the price of registrations and allowable price increases for registrations, are removed from the .org renewal agreement. Protections for existing registrants will remain in place, in line with the base registry agreement. This change will not only allow the .org renewal agreement to better conform with the base registry agreement, but also takes into consideration the maturation of the domain name market and the goal of treating the Registry Operator equitably with registry operators of new gTLDs and other legacy gTLDs utilizing the base registry agreement

The protections for existing registrants are basically the right to renew their domains for up to 10 years in advance at current prices.

ICANN’s language will likely be cited by Verisign in future price increase requests.

The current contract allows Public Interest Registry and Afilias to increase wholesale prices by 10% per year.